In a previous Creation magazine (Vol. 8 No. 1), we showed that using measured growth rates at the mouth of the Burdekin River, the Great Barrier Reef could have formed in the time since Abraham lived.

However,
the Great Barrier Reef, in spite of its huge area, is not the thickest
known reef. This distinction probably belongs to Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall
Islands. This is a living reef resting on an extinct volcano cone which comes
up about three kilometres (two miles) from the ocean floor. Drilling revealed
about 1,400 metres (4,600 feet) of reef material. At least two writers have
attacked the young age position using the argument that this coral atoll must
have taken a very long time to form1,2—they estimate 138,000 and 176,000 years respectively as the minimum age for Eniwetok.

Ariel Roth of the Geoscience Research Institute has commented on the fact that estimates of
net reef growth rates vary from 0.8 millimetres per year to 80 millimetres per year, whereas
actual measurements based on soundings at depth are many times these estimates.3
Roth suggests a number of reasons for this difference.

The main one is that measurements made at the surface will show lower rates of growth
because of exposure to air at low tides and intense ultraviolet light. Lack of light will of
course kill a reef—no live coral growth takes place below about 50 metres under the surface.
Hence thick atolls such as Eniwetok require the ocean floor to sink as the coral builds.
As the coral is lowered, faster growth is possible than that which we measure at the surface.

There are complex factors which both add to the growth
of a reef and take away from it. For instance, attack by certain organisms
and wave destruction will contribute to a decline in reef size. On the
other hand, a growing reef can trap sediments as they are moved along
by currents, thus adding to its thickness. Storms can dramatically add
to the thickness of a reef by bringing in coral from other areas.

For example, in 1972, Cyclone Bebe ‘constructed’ a rampart of coral rubble 3.5 metres high,
37 metres wide and 18 kilometres long in a few hours.4

Given all the above, it seems reasonable to rely on the actual figures reported from
depth-sounding measurements for coral reef growth rates, rather than calculations trying to
take all these other factors into account. Such reef growth rates have been reported as high
as 414 millimetres per year in the Celebes.5At such a rate, the entire thickness of the
Eniwetok Atoll could have been formed in less than 3,500 years.

In addition, actual experiments indicate that the rate of coral growth can be nearly doubled
by increasing the temperature five degrees Celsius (remember that Eniwetok sits on a
now-extinct volcano), or increasing the carbonate content of sea water.6

To maintain that Eniwetok Atoll could have formed in the time-span since the Flood recorded
in Genesis is not at all inconsistent with real-world evidence.